


Flyting, Fighting, Inciting, Uniting

by InsanelyYours96



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (I hate wine why is that my comparison), + horcruxes, And that joy is rhyming!, Fearless Harry, I've found a new joy!, It was Soliloquy, Life is hard, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Poetry, Sassy Harry Potter, Verbal Sparring, What To Do With Immortality, but that doesn't mean what I thought it meant, flyting, have some fun o b v i o u s l y, like a fine wine, only improves with age, please ignore the title, voldemort - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:56:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22414360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsanelyYours96/pseuds/InsanelyYours96
Summary: “No control, no sanity; it seems rather tragic,That the Dark Lord is weak, even in magic.”Voldemort let out a roar of rage.I might have gone too far, Harry considers under the sudden onslaught of spells.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Comments: 60
Kudos: 454





	1. Chapter 1

Harry watches Quirrell. He doesn’t particularly want to see his deepest desire, so he keeps his head turned from the mirror. 

Their eyes meet and Harry’s lips curl into a smirk. He already knows how this story ends.

> “Poor foolish Quirrell, did you not know?
> 
> The fate that you forged when you dared sell your soul.”

Quirrell is unnerved, but he tries to hide it. He can’t help the way his fingers quiver around his wand, though. “Tell me what you see!”

“I don’t want to.”

Quirrell gapes at his gall, and then his expression twists in fury. His wand gestures sharply.

Harry remains still. 

“Let me speak to him,” Voldemort hisses, and Quirrell does not argue. He spins around, unwinding his turban. 

Voldemort appears, and Harry looks on with some interest. He’d forgotten how deformed the man had been, face patched onto the back of Quirrell’s skull. At least the body he was resurrected in had some symmetry. Like this, his face drooped heavily to the right. He looked more like a half-melted candle than a man. 

Tom Riddle’s beauty was a long way away. 

> “Lord Voldemort the parasite,
> 
> One seventh of a soul, 
> 
> You see now what happens
> 
> When you are not whole?”

For a moment Voldemort stares, and then Harry’s scar _burns._

The Dark Lord has no rationality left in him to speak. He does not offer to let Harry live in exchange for the stone. He is furious and frightened, and his magic lashes out accordingly. 

The mirror _shatters_. Harry shifts out of the way of a melting hex, and a _Protego_ holds off blasting and blood-boiling curses. Harry eyes the shards of glass on the floor, and under his gaze they rise.

He lifts his wand and flings them. Voldemort turns them to dust. 

Harry’s wand twitches, and he tries _Incarcerous_.

Voldemort is as quick as he is mad. He ducks the rope, banishes the flames that follow, and thrusts his wand in a jab.

Harry lets it deflect off of another _Protego_ , and receives a torrent of white-hot pain from his scar for his troubles. 

He can’t help the laugh he lets loose. The spell was pitiful, and yet it took all of Quirrell’s strength. It is less than half of Voldemort’s own power; of Harry’s. It should have obliterated a simple shield charm. If Voldemort had been whole, Harry would have dodged—or died, choking on his own blood.

> “No control, no sanity; it seems rather tragic,
> 
> That the Dark Lord is weak, even in magic.”

Voldemort let out a roar of rage.

 _I might have gone too far,_ Harry considers under the sudden onslaught of spells. 

But it was like a child throwing a tantrum. The Dark Lord might have a repertoire of complex spells, each more terrible that the last, but he didn’t have the strength to overpower Harry. Unless he decided to pull out something stupid, like _Fiendfyre_ , Harry’s victory was assured.

It was disappointing, in a way. He remembers being so afraid of the Dark Lord once. Now all he can feel is pity.

* * *

The Chamber of Secrets is just as horrid as Harry remembers. The scent of mildew is strong, water sloshing over the canals and onto the stone floor. Puddles disperse unevenly. Luna lies on one of the only dry patches, long blonde hair spread around her head like a lion's mane.

Harry crouches down to ensure that she’s alive. She is freezing, but her pulse is still strong. Harry casts a heating spell on her. The magic drains away quickly. 

He turns to eye the Dark Lord’s first horcrux. Riddle watches him keenly from his spot on Salazar’s statue. 

> “A shade, a shadow,
> 
> A shard in the lurch;
> 
> What will you do Riddle,
> 
> Observe your perch?”

Brown eyes gleam at him. Amusement makes a vague impression on their link, overshadowed by curiosity and tempered anger. 

> “A coward I am not,
> 
> Though I can’t help but wonder;
> 
> Why so eager, little Potter,
> 
> To be torn asunder.”

Harry startles. Something comes to life in his chest, giddy and pleased. 

Riddle is the first to reply to him, to _flyte_ with him, in decades. Death had stopped when Harry kindly suggested he get some new material. To be fair, all the talk of dying alone and being chained in a hell of his own making had gotten depressing.

He’s been so very _bored._

> “Asunder? Oh hardly,
> 
> Look close, do I quake?
> 
> Your power appears impotent;
> 
> Go on, call your snake.”

Riddle smiles, and it’s not a pretty thing, even on his handsome features. It’s sharp, half-feral, fully amused. It was almost as though he were untucking the monster that lurked beneath his skin. 

> “You think much of your prowess; Pride is a sin. 
> 
> You reflect poorly your House; I shall easily win."

_Oh?_ A prod at him being a Ravenclaw?

Harry opens his mouth to rebut, but his eyes happen to catch on Luna just as she pales dangerously. He frowns. He won’t have his fun at the expense of somebody else, especially not Luna. In this life she’s one of his only friends.

Still, the day isn’t a total waste. Harry developed a spell in his forties, and at last he would get to see if it worked. 

At the very least, it will detach Riddle from Luna. At the most, it will dispel the shard to Voldemort and force it to rejoin with the main soul piece, perhaps speeding up his resurrection.

Harry closes his eyes, centers himself, and begins to cast.

* * *

Green eyes light up. Harry has an idea. His plans usually work, slap-dash and quick, lucky and foolish and most always exciting. 

By the end of the fortnight Sirius is free, Pettigrew is in chains, and the dementors have left Hogwarts.

Harry feels their presence depart with a sigh of relief. Hogwarts seems to sigh along with him.

Eyes follow him. 

Harry pretends not to notice.

* * *

Voldemort sneers at him. 

“No rhymes today, Potter?”

Harry considers him for a moment. He frees himself from the gravestone of Tom Riddle Sr., stepping forward and calling back his holly wand with a wiggle of his fingers. Voldemort stares, fascinated and angry and befuddled, as the wand answers his call eagerly, slipping from Wormtail’s pocket. 

The rat squeaks in alarm. Harry downs him with a simple gesture.

He smiles mockingly and cedes. 

> “You rise in a new form,
> 
> Sanity torn;
> 
> Humanity lost long ago,
> 
> Your body reflects it _just so;_
> 
> One question for you, before you bid me to contort;
> 
> That look on your face—are you scared, Voldemort?”

Thin lips twist in rage, but something else entirely sparks along their bond. 

> “Very good little boy,
> 
> You have wit in that head;
> 
> Though alas, it is wasted!
> 
> For you’re soon to be dead.”

But Voldemort does not begin casting. He watches him closely instead, and Harry realizes with a jolt that the man is not content with killing him. Not until he is sure he has won the exchange. 

Unlike a night long ago, Voldemort does not call for his Death Eaters. Instead his stands in a graveyard and watches his nemesis, red eyes gleaming, awaiting a rebuttal. 

But that is not the only way this Voldemort differed from the other. Harry had noticed his nose, of course, but peering closer more changes are evident. For one, the Dark Lord is not emaciated, and instead of moon-white his skin is pale but healthy. He is still bald, but Harry doubts new bodies come with hair.

The diary had done something after all. Where Harry’s last Voldemort had monologued, this one flytes with him as Riddle did in the Chamber.

> “Your arrogance is amusing,
> 
> Your underestimation a pleasure.
> 
> Do you truly think, my Dark Lord,
> 
> Words will give you my measure?”

> “You’re a skeptic, fair enough,
> 
> You plead for your doom?
> 
> Who am I to deny you,
> 
> When you long for a tomb.”

The cruciatus comes quick, and Harry ducks under the red light. He points his wand at the Dark Lord’s head and the ground beneath him detonates. Harry has no illusions. He only succeeds in knocking the man off his feet by virtue of surprise. He had misdirected and used wandless magic. The same trick won’t work twice. 

Even thrown to the ground Voldemort is not still. Spells shoot through the shower of dirt. 

Harry blocks two with his shield and uses a stone to deflect the killing curse. He throws back an entrail expeller, a disarming charm and an over-powered cleaning spell. 

Of course, they miss. Voldemort climbs to his feet as the duel intensifies.

But Voldemort is the one of the defensive now. Harry does not stop casting for a moment. Flames backed by the wind, rocks transfigured into wasps, an electrical current. He is _relentless_. 

(In truth, he is angry.

For a moment he had been stupidly hopeful. That Voldemort had regained his sanity. That perhaps he would not have to fight for once.

But hope was for children.)

The duel goes on. And on. And on.

And then? Then, Harry disarms the Dark Lord. 

Harry’s lips curl. Voldemort stares at him, eyes wide in the wake of his destruction. The night air glimmers with shards of stone and dirt. 

“Will you kill me, Harry Potter?”

He looks pathetic, Harry thinks. The attempt at bravery is pitiable, certainly.

“Not today,” he says. He sets the yew wand on top of Tom Riddle Sr.’s cracked gravestone and walks across the graveyard. Wormtail is alive but unconscious, and for a moment Harry considers changing that. He could vanish him, or perhaps use the killing curse.

Instead he walks on, until he’s next to the Triwizard cup. Red eyes bore into the side of his head. Harry turns. Frowns.

> “Who is the true winner?
> 
> Who gets the last word.”

* * *

The locket glows and from it Tom Riddle rises. He does not waste a moment. 

> “I’ve seen your heart and it is mine;
> 
> Be grateful to belong to a Lord so divine.
> 
> Don’t tremble so, I shall care for you sweetly.
> 
> You need only bow your proud head; give yourself over _completely._ ”

Harry raises an eyebrow and lowers his wand. He knows it’s largely distraction, but he just can’t help himself. Flyting with any part of Tom Riddle was simply _exhilarating._

> “My trembles are laughter held back by my teeth;
> 
> Your presumption astounds! You believe _I_ belong beneath?
> 
> I hold more of your soul than you have yourself; Somehow
> 
> It is you, sweet immortal, at my mercy now.”

Harry bares his teeth, and the soul piece matches him with a scowl. Riddle opens his mouth, but Harry cuts him off before he can begin. 

> “Don’t quake, _little horcrux_ ,
> 
> Just do as I say. 
> 
> I’ll pull you from your prison,
> 
> Deliver you to Voldemort today.”

Brown eyes darken until they’re nearly black, though Harry can hardly tell if Riddle is hungry or angry. His emotions do little to settle the matter. 

> “You think yourself wily in tongue and in wit?
> 
> I see your true colors, magic dark as a pit!”

Harry throws back his head and laughs. The horcrux really should know better. 

It only got to see the bits of Harry that he let it. 

> “Do I look shaken, afraid of your claim?
> 
> I am Dark; I am Light; look again, I am _Grey_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been very inspired this week! Never in my life have I had so much fun writing.
> 
> No world building here, unless it's between my mains!
> 
> More to come on this one - and that's a promise! (Please don't ask when, I'm not sure. But I'm working on it!) 
> 
> Please leave a comment on your way out. :)


	2. Chapter 2

Riddle stills. He had been slowly approaching Harry from the moment he was freed, as though a predator stalking prey. 

_Harry_ was hardly prey, though. 

“Grey,” he repeats. “Yet you were born to two Light parents. How… abnormal.” 

“Magic is more than genetics,” Harry says lightly. Voldemort must know, but this incarnation of Riddle is still in his early twenties. “It’s environmental as well. That’s why Dumbledore’s magic is Grey, along with Alastor Moody’s and Bartemius Crouch’s son. In each case the parents were Light-oriented, but the child’s upbringing led to the capability of being adept in either branch of magic.”

Riddle blinks at him. “ _Dumbledore_ is Grey? I don’t believe you. His magic feels positively _sickly_.”

Harry grimaces, perfectly aware of the sensation Riddle was describing. He had felt Dumbledore’s magic crawl over his more than once over the years, thick, slimy and bleached bright. “ _That’s_ his own fault. Surely you don’t feel such things around every Light wizard you meet?”

Riddle pauses, reluctant to agree. Harry gives him a knowing look and continues.

“When you’re Grey but only utilize one branch of magic, your core edges towards that end of the spectrum. But like you can’t change whether you’re a Light or Dark wizard, you can’t help but be Grey. If you neglect one branch of magic it’s like withdrawal; a stressor on both your magic and body, which can also affect mental health. Dumbledore’s one hundred and sixteen at this point, but he looks closer to one hundred and fifty. His body has aged quicker than most because he’s rarely used Dark magic since he was a teenager. The ‘sickly’ feel of his magic is a result—my godfather’s feels the same, for the opposite reason.”

Riddle’s lips purse. “He is considered one of the most powerful wizards in the world, still?”

“Yes, that hasn’t changed. Just imagine how much more powerful he could be if he embraced both branches.”

Harry can still feel a touch of skepticism through their link, but it’s hardly his goal to convince Riddle of Dumbledore’s magical inclinations. 

Harry, too, has reasons to stall. 

“This _is_ interesting,” Riddle says lightly. “Though I can hardly believe you’ve managed to speak with me for so long without rhyming.” 

Harry flashes him a cocky grin. He’s _felt_ Voldemort’s pleasure a few times when flyting, so Riddle’s apparent dismissal is amusing. “You’re only upset because you always lose.”

Their link bubbles with outrage and a strange eagerness, but Tom keeps his expression lax. About to make his move, Harry judges. 

“Shall we make a wager?”

Whatever he’s plotting, Harry’s not interested. “Maybe next time.”

He casts quickly, the magic already silently prepared and reinforced throughout Harry’s lecture on Grey magic. Riddle snarls, lunging forward, and vanishes just before he can lay a hand on Harry. 

Slytherin’s locket seems to dull as Tom is sucked out of it and forced to reunite with Voldemort. Harry double checks the item, then clasps it around his neck. 

It might come in use.

* * *

Harry is beloved by the younger years. He protects them from bullies, tutors them, and tells them stories. 

And _oh_ do they adore just how he tells them. Weaving images with his magic was something Harry had originally learned to do to entertain Teddy. Now, he uses it to illustrate his tales.

> “Once a basilisk lived in a forest filled to the brim,
> 
> With Pixies, with Nifflers, with Gnomes and with Grimm,
> 
> It was hatched there to guard, to protect and defend,
> 
> And the basilisk did, even as he longed for a friend. 
> 
> The creatures were scared to approach him, he could kill with a glance!
> 
> Even the serpents fled before him, terrified to give him a chance. 
> 
> So the basilisk grew lonely as it protected its home,
> 
> Attacks came from poachers unwilling to let creatures rome. 
> 
> But the basilisk, unlike he was made to do,
> 
> Never looked upon the intruders. Instead he took them and _threw!_
> 
> In his strength there was magic, and when he tossed people away,
> 
> They were spared from death— _unless_ they again sought out prey.”

Harry’s projection shows a hunter sneak through the other side of the forest. He took aim at a thestral, and the moment his bow released the arrow disintegrated. So did the man. 

His listeners murmur, but settle quickly as he begins to speak again.

> “Stories were whispered from person to person; 
> 
> Something worth killing for caused interest in the Forest to worsen. 
> 
> A man came forth, determined to reveal the lands riches,
> 
> The basilisk tossed him away too, drawing the attention of a coven of witches. 
> 
> ‘Monster!’ They shrieked, wands in hand, taking shots.
> 
> Spells splashed over its hide; hot, burning spots. 
> 
> There was a solution so simple to make the agony stop,
> 
> He need only open his eyes, and dead, they would drop. 
> 
> Instead the basilisk showed mercy, again and again,
> 
> The witches were tossed away, as were many more men,
> 
> The cycle was never ending; there was no peace to be found,
> 
> More magicals came, in search of treasure profound.
> 
> One day a wizard appeared of notable renowned,
> 
> A parselmouth, sure that he could talk the basilisk around. 
> 
> ‘Greetings, King of Serpents, show me to your gold,
> 
> I am a Speaker, so obey me: show me wonders untold!’
> 
> For the first time someone spoke to the basilisk without calling it a beast,
> 
> But it was confounded, for there were no wonders to be released. 
> 
> He explained to the Speaker that there was no such treasure,
> 
> And the Speaker hissed an incantation in parseltongue to show his displeasure. 
> 
> Unlike normal spells, which skimmed off his thick hide,
> 
> This one twisted through his skin and caused pain that would not subside!"

Some of Harry’s audience gasp in outrage, and he spares them a brief smile as the image of the pale basilisk begins to darken ominously. The wound to his underside was pitch black, with veins branching off of it like poison.

> “‘I should kill him,’ thinks the Basilisk, full of anger and spite. 
> 
> How was it always he forced into a fight?!
> 
> He longed only for peace, for comfort, for friends!
> 
> But his wishes were for naught; inevitably, his patience ends.”

Harry makes a slashing motion with his wand. The children cry out as the wizard is taken into the basilisks mouth, though some seem to be cheering the basilisk on. 

> “He grips the wizards robes tight between ginormous teeth, 
> 
> He longs to dig in, capitulate to his malice, to _eat_ ,
> 
> But something within him protests fervently:
> 
> ‘Truly, a killer, is that what you wish to be?’

The children hush as the severity of the situation sets in.

> The basilisk hesitates and the wizard strikes;
> 
> A spell shoots down his innards; agony spikes!
> 
> The wizard did not think a beast capable of feeling;
> 
> He cast another spell, unaware of the goodwill he was stealing.
> 
> ‘If a monster I am, if it’s all that they’ll see,
> 
> I shall _kill_ this wretch and let them forsake me!’

The basilisk bursts into flames, and the wizard burns with it. The image flickered in an imitation of fire, before extinguishing and taking the light of the room with it. 

Everything was still, as if the world was holding its breath. Harry's voice shattered the hush, tone softer, now, but no less powerful. 

> “What is a monster but a being of our own making?
> 
> A consequence of selfishness, never giving, always taking;
> 
> We take from Lady Magic, from each other, from the wood;
> 
> And sometimes we take something precious: _the good_.”

The room gradually brightens, but the quiet holds until Harry clears his throat.

“So,” he says, “What do we think?” 

The children begin to speak all at once.

Luna peers at Harry knowingly. Harry grins back.

* * *

“You have a way with words,” an amalgamation of Tom Riddle and Lord Voldemort tells him that night. He’s sitting on a desk within Harry’s mindscape, red eyes pinning him in place.

Harry raises a brow. “You heard?”

“When one speaks of basilisks, I take notice.”

Harry is sure that is meant to intimidate him, but he’s well aware that this is not the main piece of Voldemort’s soul, no matter what it might want him to believe. The diadem sitting on neat curls gives him away. Not to mention that Harry had been in the Room of Requirement when he wove a tale for the kids.

“Are you admitting that I’m better with words than you are, Voldemort?”

Brown eyes spark in apparent pleasure at his address. “I will admit no such thing.”

There is a pause in which the Dark Lord casts a look around, noting his surroundings. Harry’s mindscape has taken on the form of the Room of Lost Things, perhaps as a nod to where he fell asleep. Normally it is far more bleak.

“How did you come to be here?” Riddle hisses.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” he returns. “This _is_ my mindscape.”

“And yet you do not seem overly disturbed that Lord Voldemort can enter your dreams at will.”

Harry laughs. “Perhaps because he _can’t._ I fell asleep in the same sub-dimension as your diadem, Voldemort. I don’t make a habit of napping when I see your main soul piece.”

Nostrils flare. But instead of acknowledging that Harry knows, Voldemort says,

> “Pertinent you rise,
> 
> Overconfident, nearly breaking;
> 
> Terrified you stall,
> 
> Throat tight, limbs shaking;
> 
> ‘Ever the coward,’ prophecy calls,
> 
> Revile born of your own making.”

It takes Harry a moment to find the pattern, but when he does he smiles. _Potter_. 

Voldemort was many things, and clever was chief among them.

Still, he is surprised that the horcrux seems to know of the prophecy. How much could he have learned, stuck in Hogwarts all these years?

The soul shard should not have been able to venture outside of the Room of Requirement, but Voldemort had never been one for rules. And with the ambient magic of Hogwarts, and all the energy Harry had released into the room lately, who knew what this horcrux was capable of?

> “Venom drips from your lips,
> 
> Offense comes easily.
> 
> Lies sweet on your tongue;
> 
> Doubts since you were young.
> 
> Empty is your chest,
> 
> Mind follows when pressed;
> 
> Obsessive is this cheat,
> 
> Rigor mortis calls so sweet;
> 
> Trample on, darling, towards utter defeat.”

Harry leans forward to deliver the last line, eyes gleaming wickedly, and Voldemort does the last thing he expects.

He _laughs._

It’s oddly enchanting, even on the somewhat warped features of the horcrux. But it is also chilling, because it can spell nothing good. 

“Such a clever mouth,” Voldemort compliments—or threatens, perhaps? “I should take it as my own.” 

_Definitely threatens._

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Harry says, and pushes the horcrux from his mind.

He wakes up sweating, the Room of Requirement already shifting around him to the Room of Lost Things. He pushes himself from the bed with a groan of annoyance and sets off to track down Ravenclaw’s diadem. 

_It’s too early for this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My darlings are clever, aren't they? Coming up with these things at the drop of a hat. It takes me a bit longer.
> 
> I didn't expect to post this so soon, and honestly my basilisk fable got way out of hand. Things haven't progressed quite as much as I would have liked, so this might end up being four chapters instead of three. We shall see!
> 
> (I'm having a problem with the text between rhymes now. How do I _not_ rhyme again?)
> 
> Thanks for the comments! I appreciate your feedback - so give me more! :)


End file.
